If you pay any attention to the lives of country music stars, you've probably heard about the recent chair-throwing drama involving Morgan Wallen. But before he was tossing a chair off the top of a Broadway bar in Nashville, he was on a generational run, breaking industry records and topping charts for his hits like "I Had Some Help," "Last Night," and "Whiskey Glasses."
Below we break down how Morgan Wallen's many hits and unrivaled tours led him to his epic net worth.
Since his stint on The Voice in 2014, Wallen has made quite a name for himself in the world of country music. After releasing his very first EP a year after he was on The Voice, he's become one of the most well-known country artists of the last decade. As of 2024, Wallen has an estimated $12 million net worth, according to Celebrity Net Worth. While that's an unconfirmed figure, given his rise to fame, we imagine it's just going to keep on growing.
Getty Images/ Matt Winkelmeyer
Born in Sneedville, TN, Wallen has been interested in music since he was a young boy. According to Biography, Wallen got his start in music like many kids in the South do: religiously.
"I started singing when I was three years old at church, so I’ve always just been really into music," he told Nashville Lifestyle in 2021. "My mom recognized that I was musical even at a young age. She said I asked for a violin when I was five years old for Christmas and that’s what they got me. I was around a decent amount of bluegrass at that time, so that’s the instrument that I wanted to play. And then I started playing piano when I was seven and I’ve always really just been interested in it."
Toward the end of his high school career, Wallen hoped to continue playing baseball in college but suffered an ulnar collateral ligament tear in his senior year. According to his former baseball coach, Geff Davis, that was a difficult moment.
“It was tough. It was sad,” Davis told Knoxville News Sentinel. “I know that had to be aggravating for him.”
While that would be hard for any young athlete, the injury may have been the push Wallen needed to take music more seriously.
“I do think that was a point where he started focusing on his musical talents,” Davis said. “Who knows? If he [didn't] have the Tommy John surgery, we may not know Morgan Wallen now."
After graduation in 2011, Wallen went on to work in landscaping for a few years prior to auditioning for the sixth season of The Voice in 2014. The "Sand in My Boots" singer was only 20 at the time and performed Howie Day's "Collide" for judges Blake Shelton, Shakira, Usher, and Adam Levine. Shakira and Usher both turned their chairs and Wallen chose Usher to be his coach. During the battle rounds, Wallen was traded to team Levine and ultimately made it to the top 20. Then he sang Florida Georgia Line's "Stay." Most people state that this is the song that first put Wallen on the map as a country artist.
“I made the top 20,” Wallen said in an interview with Country Countdown USA. “When I made it there, I got a list of songs to choose from. A Florida Georgia Line song was the only country song on the list, so I sang their song and got kicked off. It shows you how things come full circle. Now I have a song with them.”
After his time on the show ended, Wallen continued working with Sergio Sanchez, a vocal coach on The Voice. He later moved to Nashville, signed with Panacea Records, and released his first EP Stand Alone with "Spin You Around"—a song that earned the artist a double platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
In 2015, Wallen signed with a new record label and released "The Way I Talk." For the next few years, Wallen began to make his own music and cowrite with some of the biggest names in the industry like Jason Aldean and (yes) Florida Georgia Line.
Three years later in 2018, Wallen released his debut studio album If I Know Me, which was his biggest album to date. The third single, "Whiskey Glasses," reached the top spot on both the Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts and ranked No. 17 on the all-genre Hot 100. The next year, he released "Chasin' You," which peaked at No. 2 on the Hot Country Songs chart.
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With the COVID-19 pandemic essentially putting a halt on everything, Wallen had more time to write music. Aside from partying with no mask (which made major news), he spent most of 2020 writing his second album Dangerous: The Double Album. Upon its release, the album was an immediate hit, debuting atop the US Billboard 200 and staying there for six consecutive weeks.
"'Dangerous' is a song that I wrote after I got into a little bit of trouble," Wallen told Nashville Lifestyles. "I wrote it to myself, just as a warning almost. If I’m in a certain mindset or if I’m in a certain way, I think it can be a little bit dangerous to whatever I have going on, and I wanted to write that to myself as a note. It just seemed like it fit the past couple of years of my life, everything has changed a lot and it felt right. That’s really the only song that I wrote to myself on the album, so it just seemed appropriate."
Since Dangerous, Wallen has continued to make top hits like "You Proof," which became his first song to reach the top five on the Hot 100; "Broadway Girls" featuring Lil Durk, which reached the top 15; and "Thought You Should Know," which topped the country charts.
Just last year, "Last Night" from One Thing at a Time reached the top of the Hot 100, a first for Wallen. Then in 2024, Wallen released more top singles such as "Lies Lies Lies" and "I Had Some Help" with Post Malone. The latter collaboration debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, remaining at the top for its first five weeks. We'd say Wallen may not need so much help these days.
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